New PC, (need input and expertise) Alienware purchase and more... (GTA, DDR2 800 ram upgd.)

saintsfan0990

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Jun 18, 2016
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The other day I posted about a decision for a purchase to make between the following laptop computers... I got alot of great input on the systems mentioned.

A little history... my questions are bellow-

1 ASUS ROG GL552VW-DH74 15-Inch Gaming Laptop, Discrete GPU GeForce GTX 960M 4GB VRAM, 16GB DDR4, 1TB, 128GB SSD (ROG Metallic)

2 Dell Inspiron i7559-5012GRY 15.6 Inch Touchscreen Laptop (6th Generation Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD + 8 GB SSD) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M, Microsoft Signature Edition

3 Alienware AW17R3-1675SLV 17.3-Inch FHD Laptop (6th Generation Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD,NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M, Windows 10 Home), Silver

I ended up getting the Alienware model mentioned, mostly becuase the GeForce GTX 970M.. but also the build quality... you can see my previous thread here. http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3114592/laptop-buy-versatile-gta.html#xtor=EPR-8809

not only was the build quality a large factor when I was considering this buy but I wanted a disk drive... the Alienware AW17R3-5012GRY doesnt have a disk drive! But no big deal right!? Yup, Bakua was right in persuaduing me to go with the ASUS ROG becuase it does have a disk drive. However, I am a rigger and will DIY anything. So yea, my solution(not saying I couldnt have gotten the ASUS, it was 400 dollars cheaper. Nothing wrong with that. But I wanted the Alienware I guess), 'a SATAWIRE 3.0'. Will it work out of the box? I dont know, but I plan to get it interfacing between my lite-on disk drive to jump that hurtle... I havent even turned the Alienware on yet. But I imagine it should work..

This is the Satawire 3.0 on amazon...
http://

Even if this thing doesnt work, I am confident I can hack it.... but this is my first Alienware. I cleaned up a hp touchscreen PC once by following a how-to on youtube and make the litle thing run good for a piece ** ****. But I take care of my things.

Question 1 - I want to install a bunch of games, but I dont want to install gTA V twice.l have heard of people having to install and update alienware drviers manually, wtf?. Is there anything I should do before I boot this puppy up. And should I boot her up online, or run windows 10 setup first then bring her online? Will it make a difference or not. I know windows and I have run some unstable systems before and I really dont fell like having to reinstall anything after I boot it up. It took me 92 hours to install windows on my current buiild, I just want a fast PC so any suggstions. I am alreayd preparing myself to have to update the harddisk drives for the 1tb drive as appearntly It comes with outdated drivers that limit its write speed to 150 mbs and I can handle that I believe if I knew how to test the wrote speed, Is there a native application for this in windows or possibly a software available I could get that supports device detection and could run diagnostics for me?

Question two - I recently ruined dell E6400 and have the ram still available from the upgrade I gave it. Can I drop that into the Alienware AW17R3-1675SLV. The ram leftover from my 'thinkpad build' is ddr2 800mhz and the alienware is only pushin 8 gb out of the box(Yes, an obvious downgrade from the ASUS, but the touchpad on the ALienware is much better.) It needs more. Can I put 1 stick of 4 gb ddr2 with the ddr4 2133mhz, I asking this before I boot up because my hope (or at least I am curios to see if) windows takes advantage if it. Maybe a larger paging file. I dont trust that the Alienware, or any of my games will take advantage of the upgrade manually if I install them first. Then I wont have to do that.

Question 3- I want to host my own file server from my home pc to this laptop. Does anyone know any good web service who would provide that service. It is my interpretation of cloud computing.I refuse to use any cloud services at all. But even this laptop isnt as solid as the dell e6400,

Question 4- I want to port over my music and things. But I would like to keep this PC fast. Any idea of a good program that would help me Identify duplicate files(all file types) on my entire PC or home network, so I can clean things up/and get rid of duplicates, I would like to revitilze my storage facilities.

Question 5- Any suggestions for increasing my security on this thing or good port monitoring tools to use with this thing as I travel, basically this will be my main pc for the next year or atleast 6 months. I dropped $1425.00(got it on ale and a promotional $75 discount). I want solid performance. I am getting into C++ and other things. I am willing to take a challenge to get this thing in operator status.

Question 6- Is steam worth it. Will it slow down my pc or run alot of background proccesses. I choose the alienware becuase it could run alot ay one even 4K, I hat bloatware. I want to get steam to get and play day-z.

Other questions(fruit for thought)
I am also willing to take any suggestions from the community.
Should I drop windows 10 and install a pro version of windows 7 64 bit next paycheck?
I plan to do alot on this pc and do you think that windows 10 is worthy, I would like to make a complete disk image fiel for backup once this thing is setup to spec, and advice for that. Would you recommend windows 10 or 7 for that, or would it just be a preference in terms of performance it wouldn't matter? I really want a sexy desktop with the most versatilty because I also use this PC for work. Would a dual boot with windows xp be possible with this thing. I fucked up my dell E6400 trying to reinstall windows and upgrade to 10 with a usb drive, it is just stuck in setup.) Does this happen on OEM versions of windows and can I tell which version it is running to decided if it would be safe to dual boot this thing. If possible I would like it to natively boot 10, XP, 8.1(becauase I have a disc laying around and I do like it, and be capable of booting puppy linux directly into ram(becuase I love editing windows files in linux).

-anyone know a good software for making system images, to boot from. I want to make a recovery disk to boot from with a system image of what it looked like before.

-I am novice in installing windows, so would it be safe to venture into that terrain on a new laptop if I dont completly know the enviornment? Is there anything I can do to bring this bad boy competely offline to windows updates?Is there anything I can do to bring this bad boy competely offline to windows updates?
I would like to disable them so I could install them manually on my own time later.
And last question, is there anyway to program windows to delete files forever(automatically) and return the space to the stack and system immediattely without going to the recycling bin first? I work with C++ and with what I have seen I really like the concept of dynamic memory allocation and I like how it has the memory functions add and delete. It is very neat. I think that computer should upgrade to take advantage of basic system routines. Modern systems are too bloated.
 
Solution
For the controls, you might want to make a separate post in networking forums, I think you'll get a better response. This post was pretty full up on questions so I think some people shied away from getting in to it.

For the RAM, if you think you need 32GB then go for it. Most people can get by on 8-16GB but if you're going to be getting in to memory intesive programs then you might as well go for it. Admanta vs Samsung.. I'm more inclined to go with Samsung since I have experience with their chips. I don't know who Admanta uses for their RAM modules. That being said, $110 is an absurd price. If you're in the USA you can pick up some G.SKILL Ripjaws for $60 that match the specs from Newegg or Amazon.

For the install media, contact...
The Satawire 3.0 thing. I have one, its simple and windows usualy finds the drivers without a problem. Keep in mind that you're only going to be able to use 2.5 inch drives with that since its pulling the power for the drive from a single USB port. Since you're using a laptop, I'd honestly just recommend using a normal external drive than carting around a dongle and a bare hard drive.

As for your questions
1. Just boot the thing up. You'll step through some account setup, and then you're good. From there do windows updates, get all your drivers/updatesd/ etc up to date, then load your programs. Also keep in mind with Win10 you don't have to have an online Windows account if you don't want it. Just choose the options for a local account. If you do decide to do an online account, I'd still recommend you create a local admin account in the event that the online account gets buggered up (seen it with clients, its a pain) so you can fix it eaiser.

2. Nope. Those are two totally different kinds of RAM and they won't work together. All other reasons aside, DDR2 will not physically fit in the same slots as DDR4.

3. If you want a simple way of doing it, pick up a NAS with that capability built in, Wester Digital has a whole line up for that exact purpose. If you want to DIY, you can set up a normal home computer as one, but that takes a lot more instruction.

4. I use Beyond Compare for file transfers like that. It's not automated but there are a lot of tools built in for comparisons (hence the name). You're not going to bog down the speed of the thing with simple files so don't sweat that unless you start filling the drive to capacity.

5. Gonna need to define "security" a bit better. What aspect of life are you trying to protect the computer from?

6. Steam is just a game client, same as any other. If you let it, it will run on boot, but you can simply turn it off. From my installs of it, it doesn't load any bloated stuff up even if the client isn't up. If you're concerned about whats running at boot, download Autoruns. Its a much better utility than the built in stuff in Windows. Just make sure you know and track what you're turning on or off.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

I'd stick with Win10, if you're planning on gaming you wont be getting directX 12 for Win7. You may be able to find drivers for Win7 but I would highly doubt you'll find drivers for XP. As it is, Microsoft doesn't even have the service packs for XP anymore, so I wouldn't bother. If you really want to run a multi boot setup go for it, but it does add complexity to the build and reduce your storage space. If you only need it for testing or running a one off program (not games) then I'd say do it in a virtual machine. Vmware and Oracle both have free products that work well.

If you really want to invest in upgrading the OS, I'd look at going to Win10 pro for more admin related tools. But look in to if you even need what it offers. The main reason most people needed to upgrade their Win7 installs was because of RAM limitations, only the die hards needed it for the tools offered.

Unless you physically damage the computer, or don't have access to the OS install media, there is nothing you can do to the computer while venturing in to installing things that will do permanent damage or be unable to recover from. Worse case you wipe the drive and start over.
Windows 10 updates are just part of the beast now unless you have a pro version of windows and adjust it, through group policies or reg edits. But, for most users, downloads are fine. People had an issue with Nvidia drivers that got borked when Win10 released but beyond that outcry has been more a matter of having to update than choosing to update. The biggest issue I see people run in to is the computer rebooting when it thinks your idle, and that's a setting you can change inside of 30 seconds.
 

saintsfan0990

Commendable
Jun 18, 2016
66
0
1,630


I would like to be able to see everything going on around my network, when I speak of security. If ossible I would like to be able to have full port control over all my systems from one location, more or less. If possible I would like to shy away from windows related admin tools persua... I would like to build a system image in which I could port to other computers in which it is not impossible that they would need to operate complete autonomous from all Microsoft related administrative environments.

On the subject of ram, very insightful. However, would you mess around with this stuff, and would you recommend putting 32 gB of ram in this puppy with the other specs...it is only $34.00 more but this stuff is still $110.00 cheaper than the SAMSUNG ram by the same manufacturer.?
Adamanta 32GB (2x16GB) Laptop Memory Upgrade for Dell Alienware 17 R3 Gaming Laptop DDR4 2133Mhz PC4-17000 SODIMM 2Rx8 CL15 1.2v Notebook RAM
and this is the SAMSUNG ram from Adamanta.
Samsung Original 32GB (2x16GB) Memory Upgrade for Dell Alienware 17 R3 Gaming Laptop DDR4 2133Mhz PC4-17000 SODIMM 2Rx8 CL15 1.2v Notebook Adamanta
Same stuff?

Install media will be a problem for me. It didn't come with any, not that I expected it to.The windows 10 boot drive(flash drive) I created turned out to fail on my E6400. So, yea there is that. Do you know of anyway to put a win 10 disk image on a DVD-r 4.7 single layer disk like it was in windows XP to make a multi disk restore set so I can avoid the whole 'install media' problem or what is that called now?
 
For the controls, you might want to make a separate post in networking forums, I think you'll get a better response. This post was pretty full up on questions so I think some people shied away from getting in to it.

For the RAM, if you think you need 32GB then go for it. Most people can get by on 8-16GB but if you're going to be getting in to memory intesive programs then you might as well go for it. Admanta vs Samsung.. I'm more inclined to go with Samsung since I have experience with their chips. I don't know who Admanta uses for their RAM modules. That being said, $110 is an absurd price. If you're in the USA you can pick up some G.SKILL Ripjaws for $60 that match the specs from Newegg or Amazon.

For the install media, contact Dell for a reinstall media kit. They're on either DVD or USB these days and usually run around $30. While I think you can just download the Windows 10 media online, having all the drivers and software that came with your computer can make life a lot easier. If you want to create your own install media for Windows 10 you can get the tool here to create a disk or USB drive.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10/
 
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